Not even a lightsaber could bust it. This is the “Energy Lock” from designer Young Suk Kim. Alas it is not the kind of lock you keep your bike secure with, instead it is for your plug-in objects around the house. This project goes by the name “Energy Lock,” and it’s about to totally change the way you plug in your coffee maker at night. Or VCR, if you’ve still got one of those, maybe your computer you keep hooked up all night, basically everything that sucks power while you’re not using it.

Before we get to flipping out: the plug you see isn’t from the USA. Can any of you whizzes out there tell me what country we might be dealing with here?

Next, take a look at how simple this is. All it really consists of is a timer, something very similar to the sort you might use to time your oven. Plug your plug in, turn it as a crank, and let it time down. After the amount of time you choose, the power ends.

Also, it looks like a standard Euro plug. So the country, or rather countries this is for is all European countries except Britain, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta.

Ironically, there’s another type of plug going around in Europe, especially in France and here in Germany. It’s like a Europlug, but has a round base. Meaning if you have a laptop with a plug like that, an visit Austria, it might happen that you find the sockets in the wall will not fit your plug (for reference, it is extremely rare to find anything but a round socket here in Germany. It fits both the round plug, as well as the Europlug.)

Anyway, like I said, this seems to be a Europlug. So, most of Europe in general.

Hi..the writers try their best to bring across the concepts…so please leave the designer’s English proficiency out of this debate. It makes more sense to discuss and analyze the design than pick on grammar.

I like it My only criticism would be the timer settings are not the most intuitive. Because the dial is so much like a clock, at first glance, it would make sense to turn the plug from “noon” to “quarter after” for 15 minutes of usage. I realize this wouldn’t quite work the way it’s currently designed, as “quarter after” is currently “use constantly.”

Perhaps by allowing a near 360 degree range of motion, you could introduce more settings. Of course that may be too much. Just some thoughts!

I’d say it’s the brazilian plug, although it was recently changed for the addition of the ‘ground’ plug : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60906-1
Most household eletronics use one that looks just like that in this concept.

Would it not be better if something on the socket rotated as apposed to the plug?
You get some cables that are quite stiff and twisting them might be a bit dodgey. Especially if all this is going on when you are asleep.

actually, my mistake, apparently the korean plug and europlug are not one in the same:

“At first glance, the power plug used in Korea looks just like the one
used in most of Western Europe, known as the “Euro-plug”. But the Korean
plug is actually subtly different. The pins are 4.8 mm in diameter vs
4.0 mm for the Euro plug.”

So we're going to tear apart and refit everyones plugs and existing infrastructure because your idea is prettier?

It's not particularly energy saving, rather than putting a timer on it, and it only really matters if the person actually sets it up correctly. This is a nice solution to cords that always take electricity from the wall like phone chargers, but again only if the careless person sets it up to turn off….. These are the same people who leave phone chargers in the wall…. so I'm guessing they would be just as careless to turn your plugs all the way and leave them there.

And how bout those computers that have all those plugs that go into power strips? Terrible idea really.

Why do people constantly waste time thinking up ridiculous things, make real usable products and then you will deserve praise. Your little flights of whimsy make everyone here stupider.

So we're going to tear apart and refit everyones plugs and existing infrastructure because your idea is prettier?

It's not particularly energy saving, rather than putting a timer on it, and it only really matters if the person actually sets it up correctly. This is a nice solution to cords that always take electricity from the wall like phone chargers, but again only if the careless person sets it up to turn off….. These are the same people who leave phone chargers in the wall…. so I'm guessing they would be just as careless to turn your plugs all the way and leave them there.

And how bout those computers that have all those plugs that go into power strips? Terrible idea really.

Why do people constantly waste time thinking up ridiculous things, make real usable products and then you will deserve praise. Your little flights of whimsy make everyone here stupider.

That’s bull. There is every reason to criticize a flawed idea wether you are perfect or not. By your logic if car companies decided that cars shouldn’t have brakes you couldn’t criticize them for that.

On a practical note the wires you use to wire outlets up is not something that twists around easily and slip rings are much more likely to need to be replaced over the lifetime of a building than a traditional outlet. An external timer or a switch solves the problem of wasted electricity much more efficiently.